


The Stars at the End of the Longest Night

by sailoreyes67



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fireworks, Gen, Hospital, July 4th, Sick!Dean, Soulless!Sam, h/c, hurt!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 05:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailoreyes67/pseuds/sailoreyes67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes up in the hospital, and Sam is there. But, that has to be a dream, right? Because Sam is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stars at the End of the Longest Night

_Everything is gray and clammy. There’s a smell of antiseptic coming from somewhere, and distantly, the click click click of someone’s feet in heels and the squeakier thudding of sneakers.  
  
But it’s all muffled, like it’s coming from a million universes away. Through a layer of foam._  
  
Dean opens his eyes.  
  
The first thing he sees is the white wall, and yep, hospital alright.  
  
There’s a sound just out of eye shot, and then Sam appears in front of him.  
  
Dean blinks, trying to get his eyes to focus. He’s seeing things. Sam isn’t here, Sam is--- Sam is who the fuck knows where, Sam went away... (didn’t he?)  
  
“S’mmy?”  
  
“Yeah, Dean. It’s me.”  
  
None of this makes any sense.  
  
“You hit your head pretty good. Apparently you were hunting with a bad case of pneumonia. I’m really surprised, actually. Thought you were off hunting. And with pneumonia?” Sam shakes his head. “Seriously, Dean, I’m _amazed_ Lisa let you out of the house.”  
  
Things are starting to make a little more sense. Or less sense, depending on how you look at it. Anyway, things are starting to get clearer.  
  
“You died.” Dean tells Sam, firmly.  
  
Sam laughs. “Yeah. Listen, I talked to your nurse (hot, by the way, when you’re feeling a little better I’m _sure_ you’ll be interested), and she said they’ll be keeping you for another three days at least. BUT, I’ve been thinking.”  
  
Dean is too confused to say much of anything.  
  
“Remember how much you loved fourth of July as a kid? It was, like, the only holiday you even noticed go by after Christmas.”  
  
Dean blinks, thrown off yet again by the tangent.  
  
“I mean,” Sam laughs again, a little sound that’s only sort of a laugh. “There was setting that field on fire when I was 13, you dragging me out of bed to see a neighbor’s puny fireworks when I was 3, the sparklers you had way too much fun with when I was 8...”  
  
“Sammy?” Dean says again. He has to establish that, if nothing else. The only thing that will ever make sense in a whole wide world of confusion is Sam--- and Sam isn’t making any sense either.  
  
Apparently he missed a few sentences. Sam is still talking. “...So do you want to see them?”  
  
Dean stares at him some more. His little brother, so alive in a dead, dead hospital room when Dean saw him jump into the Pit. He doesn’t answer---doesn’t even know what the question is---but apparently Sam takes his silence as affirmation. “Okay.” he says. “I’ll be back tonight.” and he sails out of the room.  
  
Dean lets the fog overtake him again, closing his eyes and drifting back into sleep. It was all a dream anyway.  
  
***  
  


Dean wakes up later to an early-evening sky out the window. A nurse is bustling around doing something to the IV coming out of one of those boxes and headed into his arm. Sam was right, she is hot. (No, he reminds himself, Sam wasn’t right, because Sam wasn’t _here.)_

She leaves a moment later, and Dean is just drifting back to grey mists, tendrils of sleep and fog, when a sound jerks him awake again. It sounds like a woman being knocked out, falling to the ground and then dragged somewhere.

He doesn’t have time to think about it, though, because Sam enters a moment later.

Sam.

Sammy.

_SAM._

“Thought you were a dream...” Dean mumbles.

“Yeah, you’ll think that later, too.” Sam replies confusingly. “Come on, let’s get you up.” he glances over his shoulder, then sets to work pulling the IV out of Dean’s skin. Dean hisses under his breath.

“Sssh, sshh, it’s okay Dean.” Sam mutters, even though Dean thought he was quiet. And then Sam’s gigantor hands are tucking themselves under his armpits, and it’s the same knuckles Dean has known for years and that’s what really convinces him that this is real.

Sam gets him to his feet, and Dean leans into his taller brother, woozy, and feeling like he’s about to fall down. He still has so many questions, but for now, all that matters is Sam.

Sam’s gigantor arms wrap around Dean’s waist, supporting him, and they just stand that way for a moment. Dean is pretty sure he’s going to start crying soon. Because _Sammy._

Sammy’s back.

Only Sam pulls away, and rests his dumb giant hand on the small of Dean’s back, pushing him toward the door, and it’s just not the same. Sam goes nice and slow, so Dean doesn’t fall flat on his face, but somehow Dean doesn’t get the impression his brother’s full attention is on him anymore. And that’s just weird.

Isn’t it?

“Act natural,” Sam hisses when they get out to the hallway. Dean turns his head, _what do you mean where are we going?_ but Sam puts the finger of the hand not on Dean’s back up to his lips, his eyes hard.

Dean doesn’t mean to shiver, but he does. It’s the pnuemonia. That’s what Sam said he had, right? And he’s only wearing a hospital gown. So of course he’s cold.

Sam pushes him along through the hospital crowd, which is surging, which doesn’t make any sense so maybe it’s not but it sure feels that way. Dean feels as if he could be swallowed whole by all the people, or fall face-first or on his ass, but Sam’s hand on the small of his back is steady and strong.

  
***  
  
Where Sam eventually leads him is quieter, deserted. Sam pulls open what turns out to be a trapdoor, and a staircase like the ones up to the attics of old houses descends on them.  
  
Sam grabs it. Then he turns back to Dean. “Can you make it?”  
  
He doubts it, really. He still feels like crap. But it’s for Sam, and this is the first time he’s seen him in, what, months?--and he was in hell, for God’s sake. Which all means, Dean will do it. He doesn’t know why Sam would want this of him, but he will.  
  
So.  
  
He puts his foot on the ladder and starts the climb. Sam wraps his arms around his back again.  
  
They make halfway up before Dean falls.  
  
Dean falls, and Sam catches him, because he’s right behind him, holding him the whole way.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
Dean gulps. He says, “Yeah, I’m good.”  
  
Sam nods, and places one of his hands on Dean’s back again, while keeping the other around him. He digs his thumb softly into Dean’s pressure point. (He learned pressure points from Lisa. He wonders where Sam learned them.) He thinks it’s slightly more calloused than he remembers, but that’s got to be an illusion. Right? Because it doesn’t make sense otherwise. (Actually none of this makes sense.)  
  
They reach the top of the stairs pretty soon after that, and break through to the roof. It’s not even an attic, Dean realizes. It’s outside, and night. The air is cool, but not cold, just comfortable really, breezy and gusting gently across his face.  
  
He pulls in a breath he’s only just realized he was short of, feels his lungs expand. Finally. Sam has let go of him, but now he takes Dean’s arm and pulls him down to a sitting position.  
  
The stars are so bright and many, like they were on the rare nights he and Sam used to spend just watching them. The nights he thought were lost to them both for good.  
  
Below them are the lights of the town, like more stars. It’s many, not a middle of nowhere then, but apparently the hospital is the highest building around, so it doesn’t really get in the way.  
  
And then a shower of red and gold explodes across the sky with a bang.  
  
Dean jumps.  
  
And relaxes.  
  
Now he understands why Sam brought him up here.  
  
He looks over at his little brother, who has a small, satisfied smile.  
  
***  
  
“Okay, so how did you get back?” Dean asks after they’ve been watching fireworks for several both long, and too-short moments.  
  
Sam shakes his head though, brisk. “Later.” he says.  
  
“Why?” Dean asks. “Dammit, Sam, you owe me an explanation.”  
  
“Watch the fireworks, Dean.” Sam says.  
  
Dean watches. He keeps his hand in Sam’s though, and one eye on him, afraid if he lets go or looks away it will all have been a dream and Sam will have disappeared. Back to Hell where all sense says he should be.  
  
***  
  
Dean wakes up in the hospital bed. He has a vague memory of falling almost-asleep watching a fireworks display and Sam dragging his half-awake ass down those uneasyifying stairs and carrying him back to bed, tucking him in, then just standing there, Sam’s face above him and the implaceable look on it being the last thing he remembers at all.  
  
Someone moves off beyond his vision.  
  
“Sammy?” Dean forces out.  
  
But it’s Lisa who comes around his bed, and the distressed look on her face tells him all he needs to know.  
  
Dean swallows.  
  
At least it was a good dream, mostly, well except for the weird things about Sam’s behavior, but it’s not like all dreams need to make sense. Just weird shit in his sick and head-injured subconscious, no doubt.  
  
Whatever.  
  
“Hey Lise.” he forces out.  
  
“Hey.” she says. “You were pretty beat up. How are you feeling?”  
  
Dean shrugs. (It was just a dream, it shouldn’t hurt so much that it’s over.)  
  
Lisa lets her hand fall down to his shoulder. It’s gentle, like a raindrop rather than a shooting star. “It’s gonna be okay.” she says simply.  
  
Dean nods. He wishes he believed her.  
  
***  
  
He gets discharged three days later, like Sam said in his dream, which is kinda weird but not really. He probably just picked it up while he was asleep.  
  
Lisa drives him home while Ben is still at school. Dean doesn’t say anything, but he guesses she attributes it to the lingering sickness.  
  
Dean gets back to life as it is for him now. Cooking, cleaning, working, drinking. Lisa and Ben.  
  
But for the next few days, every time he glances out a window, he could swear he sees Sam. Sam ducking behind a tree or something.  
  
But he’s sure it’s a trick of the light.  
  
It wouldn’t be the first time.


End file.
